If you look closely, you may
notice the "greening" of John Dempsey Hospital.
That's because the hospital has rid itself of
mercury glass thermometers and switched to a more
environmentally friendly version, in an effort to
minimize pollution and reduce hazardous
waste.

The switch was completed earlier
this year, when the intensive care units converted
to electronic thermometers, joining other parts of
the hospital that had already taken that
step.

"Our switch to mercury-free
thermometers is the result of a memorandum of
understanding to improve the environment, signed in
1998 between the American Hospital Association and
the Environmental Protection Agency," says Nick
Noyes, director of clinical engineering, a member
of the hospital's environmental health and safety
taskforce. The taskforce is working to eliminate
mercury where it can.

The memorandum calls for the
health care industry to minimize production of
pollutants and reduce the volume of waste
generated. It specifically asks hospitals to
eliminate mercury-containing wastes by 2005.

"Our hospital probably generated
only a cup of spilled mercury a year and we always
had a good program in place to respond to spills,"
says Noyes. Trained technicians clean up mercury
spills with a special HEPA filter vacuum, then the
mercury is disposed of as hazardous waste. But by
switching to electronic thermometers, even the
small amount of spilled mercury from broken
thermometers can be eliminated.

"Mercury is not really that
volatile a substance, but if it is disposed of
improperly, it can get into the atmosphere or into
water supplies. From there it accumulates in the
tissue of fish and passes into the food chain,
where it affects wildlife and humans," Noyes
says.

Some hospital staff were initially
reluctant to switch from mercury glass
thermometers, concerned that the non-mercury models
might not work as well. So, together with staff of
the neonatal intensive care unit, Catherine
Tuccillo, Ted Rosenkrantz, and Ann Cinotti, Noyes
ran parallel studies comparing the two models. The
studies showed they were equally accurate.

The staff soon got used to the
change. "The nurses love our new thermometers,"
says Tuccillo, coordinator of the neonatal
intensive care unit. "They are reliable and fast,
taking only 10 seconds to analyze an axillary
[armpit] temperature versus the three minutes
required for an axillary temperature with mercury
thermometers. That's a huge savings in labor when
you consider the hospital staff takes more than
100,000 temperatures a year.

"We also think the mercury-free
thermometers are better for infection control,
since the probe has a disposable cover that is used
only once," Cinotti adds.

The next target in the drive
toward a mercury-free hospital is
sphygmomanometers, the blood pressure recording
devices. "These aren't quite the problem the
mercury thermometers were," says Noyes. "There
aren't as many of them in use and they are
generally fixed to the wall, so there's less chance
they'll get broken."

Nonetheless, the hospital has
budgeted money to switch to mercury-free units in
the next fiscal year. Mercury thermometers in
clinics and doctors' offices will also be
replaced.